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The Resian Folk Group were from the Resia Valley in the Italian Alps. What sets them apart from their countrymen are their folk traditions and language, which seem to have a strong Slovene influence. Canary Records does their usual outstanding job remastering this collection. It sounds absolutely gorgeous considering the age of these recordings.
Bassist Skúli Sverrisson has been a favorite of mine for well over 20 years. In this reissue, he teams with tenor saxophonist Óskar Guðjónsson in a quiet, minimal, yet somehow lush release of interplay between the two masters. From the release’s Bandcamp site: “After Silence (Eftir þögn) was recorded in 2001 and marks the beginning of the Skúli Sverrisson & Óskar Guðjónsson duo. Their…
Though there are no tracks to share with you from this release, I can say that there are 136 tracks of indie, alternative, folk and other genres coming together for Cardinals At The Window, a compilation whose purpose is to give funds to those who suffered from the horrible flooding which occurred in North Carolina. Pray for those in need, and give materially where possible.
From the Canary Records Bandcamp site: “When middle-class Americans in the 1950s found that they could get access to a tape recorder and a microphone, it then became possible for them to make recordings that they could pay to have pressed into discs. One didn’t need to go to dedicated recording studios, most of which had been for decades in the cosmopolitan centers – first New York, then Chicago,…
This album is an absolutely sublime combination of folk music and classical, with Gaelynn Lea’s violin sounding like a full orchestra. From the release website: “‘All the Roads that Lead Us Home’ is a focused, vibrant piece of music by a person who is able to take a solitary instrument and make it sound like a full string arrangement, who can fill a full-length LP with mostly just those sounds…
This is a rather novel concept. The compilation featured here, courtesy of Was Ist Das?, is, as the Guardian states, “… a fittingly weird 50th anniversary tribute to The Wicker Man’s startling soundtrack. Magpahi’s synth-drizzled Maypole, Dean McPhee’s Sunset and Meg Baird’s Willow’s Song are particularly gorgeous.” Each track stands well on its own, but generally fits the ethos of the…
Described as, “Letters read aloud over AM radio, quiet guitar through motel room walls, loud electric guitar in summer basements, gravel parking lots in the rain, train sounds,” there was no way I wasn’t going to pay attention to this release. Real Live Tigers is a project started by Tony Presley. His voice reminds me, ever so slightly, of Stuart A. Staples of Tindersticks, but with a more…
This is the latest from Prussian/Russian neofolk band Romowe Rikoito. The music is heavy, based on the neofolk paradigm, of course, but what sets this apart is the reconstructed Old Prussian lyrics, something the band is passionate about transmitting.
2023 was a magnificent year for music releases, but a harsh one for those whom we lost. The latest major artist we lost was The Pogues’ frontman, Shane MacGowan, who died on November 30th. Folk singer Enda Reilly participated in a procession through Dublin in Shane’s honor and was moved to set a poem he penned to music. I have a feeling that Shane would have enjoyed it. That closes 2023, dear…
Antonovka Records, once based in Russia but now ensconced in Moldova, continues to release some of the most seminal music to ever come out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and their reach seems to keep expanding. This album covers the work of traditional singer Cristina Godoroja, an ethnomusicologist and singer based in Moldova’s capital, Chișinău. The works hail from Bessarabia and…
Today is an auspicious occasion as this post will mark 1,000 consecutive days of posting music for my readers and friends. It’s most appropriate that number 1,000 would be someone who has appeared quite a few times on the blog, but Jeff Gburek offers an album that is as (primitive) bluesy as I’ve heard in some time. The playing is mournful in parts, but it wraps your ears up and demands your…
Kara Jackson certainly knows how to leave a strong impression! If you can imagine Nick Drake’s guitar being willed to Nina Simone with a touch of the spirit of David Bowie (see the track brain for reference), then you have this incredibly powerful album. I had no idea what to expect when I saw the cover art, but this is one of those albums I’m very happy to have taken a chance on, as the…
The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities. This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the priestly Old Believers, who fled from the persecution of the…
Your browser does not support iframes. The French collective Skáld come as a revelation to me. These are Frenchmen who expertly perform Nordic music and imbue it with everything from folk music to metal. From the band’s press release: “As the heirs of the ancient poets known as skalds, the SKÁLD group, with one song after another, tames this folk tradition. We can lose ourselves in the…
Richard Dawson – The Ruby Cord
Richard Dawson’s latest album is a fascinating listen. It mixes vocals that could fit in well with English folk, psychedelic rock, prog and AOR music, while being musically underpinned by something that could almost pass for Rock-In-Opposition at times, while falling back now and again on progressive rock structures. The album shapes and shifts on each track, and I was constantly surprised by…
Ayanga Ensemble – Erkhuu Khoto: Songs of Buryats from Irkutsk
Antonovka Records produced one of my favorite records of 2022, covering music from the region of Buryatia in Russia. From the label’s Bandcamp page: “”Erkhuu Khoto” is the Buryat name of the Irkutsk city, where “Khoto” means “City”. Buryats are the indigenous people of this area. The ensemble “Ayanga” (“Melody” in Buryat) was founded in 1998, the leader is Tsybigmit Damdinzhapova. The band…
